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  • New Interview; Mr. Anderson/NPR

  • Discussion related to Amtrak also known as the National Railroad Passenger Corp.
Discussion related to Amtrak also known as the National Railroad Passenger Corp.

Moderators: GirlOnTheTrain, mtuandrew, Tadman

 #1526812  by Gilbert B Norman
 
This is a new interview with Mr. Anderson and NPR. Apparently, it was aired December 2:

https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2019/12 ... ceo-travel

I learned of this interview at another site, far more directed towards LD advocacy than are we around here. Here is a sampling of quotes taken from their discussion:
I hate to say this but I think he’s experiencing some type of cognitive decline. He seems absolutely clueless about all aspects of Amtrak
The untruths and brazenness is getting out of control. He also says, fly it’s cheaper and faster
Gads, he seems to be full of himself and destructive to passenger rail
Obviously, with my skepticism about any significant transportation value the LD's bring to the table beyond the WOOF's - Well Off Older People - who ride for the experience, I cannot agree with any of the captioned quotes.
Last edited by Gilbert B Norman on Tue Dec 03, 2019 9:16 am, edited 5 times in total.
 #1526813  by mackdave
 
He also states that flying is more convenient. Has he ever been to Newark or LaGuardia Airports? Nothing convenient about them at all. They are a horror show!

Dave Mackay
 #1526815  by Gilbert B Norman
 
Mr. Mackay, I wholly agree with you regarding LGA (no need for me to have experience with EWR). During September '17, I was to be on a flight to HPN that got the CX (no crew) and ended up rebooked into LGA. I never saw such a sorry excuse for an airport in a major city; especially having to take two different bus rides to get to a rented auto.

From comments made by family this past September, it's no better today
 #1526821  by rcthompson04
 
mackdave wrote: Tue Dec 03, 2019 9:01 am He also states that flying is more convenient. Has he ever been to Newark or LaGuardia Airports? Nothing convenient about them at all. They are a horror show!

Dave Mackay
I think you missed the part where his comment is geared towards long distance travel. His preference seems aimed at going after the customers using the corridor routes who want to avoid places like EWR and LGA. Going to LGA to go to Chicago is still better than sitting on the Lake Shore Limited for hours on end.
 #1526823  by rcthompson04
 
Amtrak has to balance meeting passenger needs with a $40 billion backlog on necessary repair investments, Anderson says.
Anderson gets it in my opinion. If there is going to be a serious effort to clear the $40 billion backlog, it is going to require turning a profit on the operation side and focusing on using Federal appropriations on capital projects. I suspect you could even get a lot more of Federal appropriations if it is for infrastructure projects.
 #1526824  by lordsigma12345
 
I have a middle of the road opinion on the whole thing. I support having the national network, but I am not necessarily averse to any changes if they make sense and I don't feel that every single route is sacred and can't have any changes. I have some concerns about Anderson but not necessarily opposed to every idea he has. I think with any Amtrak network it makes sense to connect all the major regions of the country together - I don't think it would make sense to completely cut off the east from the west - and I think Anderson probably feels the same way. But he's probably asking - do we really need four routes from the west coast to the central US when you also have the Coast Starlight going up and down the Coast....could you say just have the Zephyr and Builder and then pick up LAX with the Starlight - those are some of the discussions I'm sure that are happening in his offices. I think some of his threatening methods are also meant to get Congress or states to cough up money - he did his thing with the SWC and what happened? Congress coughed up a bunch of money to address the track that Amtrak is responsible for. There are some long distance corridors that are troublesome and could probably be more useful with some changes. I Think one of the most obvious is the Crescent...the Crescent would work much better as an NYP-ATL train with an additional train frequency on the other side of the clock. A couple trains along the NYP-ATL stretch would serve cities like Charlotte, Greenville and Atlanta better. You could then run a bare bones day train ATL-NOL and put all the sleepers on the nighttime version of NYP-ATL.
 #1526834  by gokeefe
 
For those who are watching and think they've seen this song and dance before ... My advice: "wake up and pay attention". Anderson's tone and content are dead on. He's a technical professional with clear experience in transportation who can readily make the case that he knows what he's talking about.

The comments from the interview are potentially the most lethal sound bites to the Amtrak Long Distance network I have ever read. He's being very smart and understands after the initial misstep that he can't just tell Congress the LD transcontinental routes are wasteful. He has to make it politically palatable for them to be terminated.

This interview goes a long way down that road and sells the route changes as an opportunity to invest in service elsewhere. That is a big giant fluffy carrot to dangle in front of politicians who in some cases have probably grown tired of hearing from the same people every year that "their train" or "their station" is essential to the very fabric of the universe.

If you think for one second that this situation doesn't strongly imply termination of the Sunset Limited go ahead and think again. It has very poor patronage and is the most heavily subsidized of them all. Unlike the Empire Builder it has virtually no case whatsoever to be made that the route represents "essential" transportation to the communities it serves.

Furthermore, it likely would have very weak Congressional support from AZ and TX. LA could be placated with options for corridor service using "newly freed up equipment". UP as the host railroad would probably be willing to work out a deal for operations elsewhere in LA. The route isn't important to CA either and they have their own priorities (Coast Daylight) which could also be met using equipment liberated from the Sunset pool. NM is the big loser but could angle for commitments on the Southwest Chief that might placate them along with some sort of corridor service to Denver or (perhaps) El Paso.

That I am aware of no Amtrak CEO has ever discussed new service when talking about major route cuts. That puts Anderson in a position of strength because he has something to offer to those who feel they are going to lose out.

Somewhere in the hallways of Washington, D.C. a deal is probably being hashed out ... Should make for some interesting new service proposals.
 #1526840  by mcgrath618
 
I've purposely steered clear of this topic for awhile now. It's obviously a very heated topic that very many people, especially on this board, are passionate about. After listening to this interview, here are my thoughts and feelings:

I too have a middle-of-the-road take on what Anderson has been doing, though I'll concede that I lean against him. On one hand, I can see that corridors obviously make more money for Amtrak, and make more sense from an engineering standpoint: the train will only be faster than the plane over distances less than 4 hours. On the other hand, many people do depend on these long distance routes, and by cutting corners on them as much as he can, Anderson only serves to shoot himself in the foot.

My largest issue comes with the Viewliner IIs, which have been discussed ad infinitum in their respective thread. The taxpayers paid for fully-equipped dining cars and baggage-dorms. They have gotten neither. Anderson seems hell bent on doing a 180° from what Amtrak had been doing for years. His change came sudden and passed rapidly, almost like Hunter Harrison. A lot of changes to railroads, both passenger and freight, have been made in this country in the last few years. All of it has been in the name of making money at the expense of people.

That wording is very specific. Obviously no one has died as a direct result of PSR or microwaved dining car food, but people who depended on the railroad before those things have been left in the dust, and will continue to be cast aside going forward. Freight railroads have their own master (shareholders) to answer to, as does Amtrak (Congress). As user Gokeefe noted, Anderson seems to be playing a game here of making the service purposely terrible, and then complaining about it being "not profitable" so that Congress will let him cut everything. And I think that word, "profitable," is the very problem.

The taxpayers are paying for Amtrak, and it is my stark opinion that they should be receiving only the best quality service. As long as Amtrak remains unprofitable and receives massive amounts of government subsidies, its main concern should not be cutting corners. Its main concern should be to improve service as best they can, either by investing in faster travel or by making the service nicer. These actions should naturally make Amtrak more appealing, and more importantly make them more money. Obviously this is very long term thinking; this requires not only a physical change of the railroad, but a change in thinking on both Amtrak's and the public's behalf. All of Anderson's actions have been done with a motive similar to if not exactly alike the motive behind PSR: cutting corners and operating costs in the name of short-term profits, all while sacrificing any human element of the company that can be eliminated.

As for Anderson himself, his history with the airlines makes me incredibly uneasy. In fact, I'm willing to go so far to say that it's a conflict of interest.
 #1526847  by Matt Johnson
 
My take: show me the money! Or more accurately, show me the new corridor services before you eliminate the long distance routes in a given region. Just as Europe built and started running its new high speed services before cancelling some older legacy services, to me it's either do the same here or it's a scam intended to leave us with nothing.
 #1526848  by east point
 
What is largely being ignored is the first stumbling steps in western Europe of restoring some overnight sleeper service. The Nordic countries are leading but Austria is also talking about having more sleeper lines.
 #1526851  by mcgrath618
 
Matt Johnson wrote: Tue Dec 03, 2019 2:03 pm My take: show me the money! Or more accurately, show me the new corridor services before you eliminate the long distance routes in a given region. Just as Europe built and started running its new high speed services before cancelling some older legacy services, to me it's either do the same here or it's a scam intended to leave us with nothing.
Precisely.
 #1526855  by lordsigma12345
 
I did take issue when he cited the long distance end to end ridership number. That's not really the number that matters. There are many other possible long distance overnight trips than simply end to end. For example when you are doing WAS-MIA or NYP-ORL that is still a long distance overnight trip but would not be considered end to end. I think the better number to use when looking at true long distance ridership is riders over 500 miles.
 #1526863  by mtuandrew
 
LD trains are concatenated corridors as much as, if not more than, pure end-to-end transportation (Auto Train excepted.) I feel like that’s the one piece that Anderson hasn’t fully grasped, though he is spot-on elsewhere.

The Sunset Limited has been underperforming for years, and he is the only CEO who looks brave enough to try to hang the Adios drumhead. At the least, New Orleans-Houston is likely gone; I could readily see Houston-San Antonio and San Antonio-El Paso as daily corridors feeding the Texas Central HSR system. (And could also see Arizona simply opting out of passenger rail to Tucson.)
 #1526875  by Rockingham Racer
 
Gilbert B Norman wrote: Tue Dec 03, 2019 8:46 am This is a new interview with Mr. Anderson and NPR. Apparently, it was aired December 2:

https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2019/12 ... ceo-travel

I learned of this interview at another site, far more directed towards LD advocacy than are we around here. Here is a sampling of quotes taken from their discussion:
I hate to say this but I think he’s experiencing some type of cognitive decline. He seems absolutely clueless about all aspects of Amtrak
The untruths and brazenness is getting out of control. He also says, fly it’s cheaper and faster
Gads, he seems to be full of himself and destructive to passenger rail
Obviously, with my skepticism about any significant transportation value the LD's bring to the table beyond the WOOF's - Well Off Older People - who ride for the experience, I cannot agree with any of the captioned quotes.
I was on a round trip recently on # 1 and 2. Lots of younger people, not just WOOFs.
 #1526876  by gokeefe
 
Matt Johnson wrote: Tue Dec 03, 2019 2:03 pmMy take: show me the money! Or more accurately, show me the new corridor services before you eliminate the long distance routes in a given region.
Congress will likely feel exactly the same way. Amtrak probably knows this and I expect they will be more than prepared to make binding commitments on sensible proposals.

With regards to some of the other comments I would again point towards the improved communications Anderson is undertaking. The message has been refined, the sound bites have been sharpened and perhaps most importantly the fluffy carrot has appeared.

I take Anderson's interest in new service as seriously as I do his interest in cutting at least one of the transcontinental Long Distance services. I think he is genuinely and sincerely intent on executing a vision for improvements at Amtrak that leave it far better off than when he found it. Successfully cutting a (yes, just one) long distance train while implementing new service elsewhere and eliminating Amtrak's operating deficit before the new Acela trainsets arrive would easily place Anderson in the same league as Graham Claytor.

He has learned from the last round which was a scorcher, has now rebooted and is taking another shot at this.